Australian renewable energy: our unfair advantage

While looking at the issue of renewable energy in Australia I am reminded of a great natural resource that we have in abundance. In fact we have far more of it than any other OECD country. I am talking of solar energy of course.

The map above shows the level of insolation or solar energy irradiation reaching the earth’s surface. For clarity, only the areas receiving 5 kWh/sq m/day or more are shown in various shades of orange – those areas receiving less than 5 kWh/sq m/day are greyed out. Take a look at the map – only the southwestern corner of the United States has this level of insolation and none of Europe. The differences are not minor – the same solar panel in Australia will generate around twice the electrical energy as in most of Europe.

Are we making the most of the abundance of this pollution-free natural resource? In some ways, yes. We have the world's highest penetration of household solar PV installations at 15%. However, in terms of total contribution to generated electricity from solar PV Australia barely ranks in the top 10. What's up here?

Where Australia falls behind in the global solar rankings is in the large scale sector. Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) figures anticipate that Australia’s large scale capacity will total less than 300 MW by year’s end, a most meager sum given the state of California alone has some 7.3 GW of utility scale solar alone. SEPTEMBER 29, 2015 PV MAGAZINE

CEFC and ARENA have some new projects in the pipeline but it isn't really doing more than scratching the surface of the potential.

Australia, truly the lucky country. We really should make the most of it!